A Fight on Your Hands

“What do you do with 10,000 dead cows?” For loyal readers of the New York Times Sunday Magazine, this was the worst-case scenario, posed by an aggrieved Nebraska cattle rancher and pipeline opponent named Terry Van Housen. The rhetorical question was also part of a national newspaper story that underscored Bold Nebraska’s media strategy for over a decade. The complex interplay of grassroots environmentalism and media advocacy fosters compelling questions about the growing role of green activists in national public life. For many years, activism has been examined by scholars from the disciplines of sociology and political science, where activities